cliffs, if you will, kate. so every three to six weeks, over the next six months, we could be going through nights like this where we're up against the clock and congress has to act and the president -- they have to figure out how to compromise or watch automatic headaches kick in. >> chuck todd is going -- it's going to be a long night. thanks for being with us on wall street today, this final trading day of the year. investors were hopeful of a deal would be work out by the time the closing bell rang at 4:00. stocks soared to their highest point today. the dow finished 166 points up, the nasdaq 59 points and the s&p 500 was up almost 2400 points on the day. for the year, the dow finished with a 7% gain. the nasdaq was up almost 16% this year and the s&p 500 gained more than 13%, a very strong year for stocks. so let's bring in cnbc's senior economics reporter steve liesman. steve, we just said the market was way up today, they thought we would have a deal. now we're headed over the cliff. this can't be good n